An end-to-end Indigenous 5G Testbed has been developed by eight R&D institutes of India with a funding of Rs. 224.01 crores by the Department of Telecom, Government of India. The Testbed is available to industry, academia, research institutions and government bodies for various R&D, product development and capacity building activities.
Government Funded Indigenous 5G Test Bed
Keeping in view India’s specific requirements and to take lead in 5G deployment, DoT approved financial grant of Rs. 224 Crore in March 2018 for setting up a ‘Indigenous 5G Test Bed’, a multi-institute collaborative project. The 5G testbed, an open-box testbed, enables industry to go deeper into subsystem level for developing and testing their products and also to test the use cases at its edge.
The eight collaborating institutes in the project are IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) Madras, IIT Delhi, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Bombay, IIT Kanpur, IISc Bangalore, Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering & Research (SAMEER) and Centre of Excellence in Wireless Technology (CEWiT). The project has been completed on 31-12-2021.
In order to facilitate development of indigenous technology in line with the spirit of ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ programme, the usage charges for the Test Bed have been kept nominal with nil fee for Startups and MSMEs for the next 6 months i.e. upto Jan,2023.
Useful link –
Private Test Beds
Market reports indicate that private test beds are set up by Airtel, Reliance Jio, GE Medial / Wipro, Bosch, Nokia, Ericsson, L&T, HCL, Infosys, TCS, Amantya etc.
Setting up of 5G Use Case Labs
DoT has set up Inter-Ministerial Committee for setting up of India specific Use Case labs in different economic verticals like Education, Healthcare, Agriculture, Public safety, FinTech etc. DoT has approved proposal for setting up of 5G Use Case Lab in Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) at Institute of Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT), an Institute under RBI, at Hyderabad with a proposed funding requirement of Rs. 22 Crores for a period of 3 years. IDRBT has started working with banks and industry for development of Use cases in Banking services. IDRBT has identified Fifteen entities for potential use case development, broadly in the areas of customer self-service, collaboration between BFS and telcos, NG-branches, and field staff enablement. IDRBT is also working with banks and start-ups to pilot the use cases. A broad range of technologies are being leveraged for the use cases, including AR/VR/MR, Cloud & MEC, Computer Vision, Wearables, Haptics, Humanoids, IoT, Drones, AI / ML, and DLT.
5G Network in a Box
5G Network in a box supports a “5G Stand Alone” network solution (quick to deploy). The software and hardware can support 5G SA, 5G NSA or 4G LTE operations. It can also be used to create testing environment as it contains a 5G Core, an optional 4G Evolved Packet Core, eNodeB/gNodeB.
More information on Government Funded Indigenous 5G Test Bed
Key outcomes expected from the usage of test bed and the Transfer of technologies are:
- More startups able to develop and make the products market ready in 5G areas
- Product development times are cut down by licensing the IPs and also by using the test bed for R&D
- Helps the companies in preparing the products by doing pre-interop testing in the test bed
- Development of Indigenous solutions for Indian 5G market
- Capacity building in 5G technologies
- Verifying and demonstrating IPs for future standards
- Provide the base for development of next generation cellular technologies
5G Test bed activities, services, and technology offered
| Institute | Work Done | Services Offered | Technology offered for licensing |
|---|---|---|---|
| IIT Hyderabad | 5G NR gNB and UE stacks • NB-IoT Chip | 5G NR gNB and UE – Interoperability testing of sub systems such as PHY, stack, Core, NAS or RF • End-to-End Interoperability testing: IITH gNB with 3rd party UE / IITH UE with 3rd party gNB • IITH NB-IoT UE – For testing 3rd party NB IoT base station • IITH NB-IoT UE and NB-IoT test base station – NB-IOT App testing | |
| IIT Delhi | MEC (Multi-access Edge Computing) • IOT Applications • LiFi • Security Algorithms | MEC platform and setup – Service platform for MEC functionality • IOT test bed • LiFi Test bed | • MEC platform • IOT techniques for Energy Harvesting • LiFi design and modules |
| IIT Kanpur | Hardware • Base band unit Software • Base Station PHY stack (L1) – PUCCH, PDCCH | • RRH FR1 16/32/64 antenna systems • RRH FR2 • L1 software stack • Base Band Unit • 5G Core (with IITB, CEWiT) | |
| IISc Bangalore | • Sub 6 GHz TB – Open Source based • mmWave RF • V2X • VLC | • Sub 6 GHz TB – Open Source based • mmWave RF TB • V2X TB • VLC TB | |
| IIT Madras | Hardware • Base Station Remote Radio Head (RRH) FR1 • Base Station RRH FR2 • UE/CPE Hardware • Hardware integration Software • Base station PHY stack (L1) – PDSCH, PUSCH, PRACH, PBCH, PUCCH Format0, MIMO, FAPI • RF Conditioning modules • ORAN • 5G Core | • End to end Test Bed Usage Service • Emulated End-to-end Test bed (RANEmu+5GCore) | • RRH FR1 16/32/64 antenna systems • RRH FR2 • L1 software stack • Base Band Unit • 5G Core (with IITB, CEWiT) |
| CEWiT | • 5G Core • RAN Emulator • UE L1, L2, L3 stacks • NAS stack and UE Higher layers | • End to end Test Bed Usage Service • Emulated End-to-end Test bed (RANEmu+5GCore) | • 5G Core (with IITB, IITM) • RANEMU • UE stack |
| IIT Bomaby | • 5G Core • Multi-RAT controller and N3IWF (Non-3GPP Interworking Function) | • 5G Core (with CEWiT, IITM) • Multi-RAT with N3IWF |
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| SAMEER | • MIMO Antenna FR1 • Phased Array antenna FR2 | • RRH FR1 16/32/64 antenna systems • RRH FR2 • L1 software stack • Base Band Unit • 5G Core (with IITB, CEWiT) |